


Rock Paper Scissors

by elitryalittle



Category: Holby City
Genre: CampWolfe, F/F, berena - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 06:23:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11731311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elitryalittle/pseuds/elitryalittle
Summary: Holby City will be letting Berenice Bloody Wolfe go this Tuesday, whether temporarily or permanently is anyone's guess. This work tries to capture reflections from Bernie's perspective on her relationship with Serena as she decides what to do post-AAU. Canon-compliant.





	Rock Paper Scissors

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at a one-shot, and is still pretty rough. Rather than hold onto it in an endless pattern of edits, or figure out exactly how to go about getting a beta, I thought I'd just share it in anticipation of Bernie's departure. The more I reflected on Bernie's experiences, the more I became aware of just how tragic the Berena storyline has been. The title comes from Ani DiFranco's song, Rock Paper Scissors (lyrics below), which resonated for me with how I imagined Bernie experiencing the events after Elinor's death, alone, at a kitchen table, a glass of whiskey in hand. 
> 
> *Warning* this does not shy away from any of it. I welcome any/all comments. 
> 
> Rock Paper Scissors, Ani DiFranco  
> (Reveling/Reckoning, 2001) 
> 
> it's rock paper scissors as to whether  
> i will get over you at all  
> it's hand against hand and both hands are mine  
> it's standing in a circular line  
> which is not to say that i'm not also happy  
> a happy meal with a surprise inside  
> surprise surprise here's another bright light in your eyes  
> exposing all the stuff you're not calculating enough to hide  
> this melancholy that i carry makes me feel so grown up  
> at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation  
> i never thought i'd see the day when i would say i give up  
> and break the stallions of my wildest expectations  
> i do not want to know you this way  
> surrounded by so much pain  
> but how am i supposed to let go of you this way  
> like a bird into the sky of my brain?  
> i think i could accept all these dark colors  
> as just part of some bigger color scheme  
> if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness  
> underscoring each smiling scene  
> desire drags me right out of myself  
> a gas-soaked rope tied to a piece of coal  
> and i'm getting pretty good at looking at the bright side  
> while the flames rip along the sand and swallow me whole

I knew she would have to leave. I think this realization settled in the day she signed consent to release her daughter's organs for donation. Her eyes had changed. There was a vacant quality in their shock as they retreated from the present moment. Realization happens in the brain, though. In hindsight, my body knew our bubble had burst the moment I saw Elinor crumpled on the floor of the loo. There are two types of trauma: the kind that happens to others, and the kind that happens to you. Empathy seeds itself in fertile spaces where the mind can continue, but the tendrils of tragedy can be as ivy, capable of strangling the strongest trees. Whether that tragedy is the product of inevitable circumstances or an innocent miscalculation, there is a recognizable instant when the rational mind cedes all territory to faith and hope. I felt it the moment I saw Elinor's blown pupil: the deep desire to turn back the clock expressed in repeated pleas to gods I don't actually believe in. 

For all the trauma I have seen, such desperation has been a rare feeling in my life. I count this as incredible luck. It was there when Cameron broke his arm on the playground after a failed dismount from the swings. There was the moment Charlotte came home in tears after a date, her shirt torn and mascara run. The five thousand kilometer phone call from Alex before I was quarantined on a false positive of open tuberculosis. But those moments of panic played out into the collection of memories we cataloged with near misses. Broken bones healed and hard lessons were learned. The losses were bearable.  

I believe that my resistance to desperation has been, in large part, because I've been trained to act in the midst of a crisis, to place the needs of my unit above the emotion of a moment, regardless of the circumstances. For all intents and purposes, this training has protected me from the horrors of true loss. It encapsulates tragedy before it can penetrate the heart and compartmentalizes hurt to be dealt with on a stronger day. I'm not saying that I am better for it, there is simply no room for despair when taking action.

Perhaps this was a part of what drew me to surgery and offer my skills to the Armed Forces. It may have been why I chose the secondment in Ukraine. The desire to act is less shameful than the desire to run, isn't it?  If they are really that different, that is. Why confront a rapidly diminishing home life when there is a stream of broken bodies I can save? No one would dare blame an absent mother for serving her country and the world. And if it was really love, wouldn't it weather temporary absence? 

I can hear the rubbish in those words, trust me. It's fitting that the source of my desperation would start in theater and end in a closed trauma unit. It would seem that the Universe chose to test my resolve as soon as I decided to deal with my emotions head on.

What I haven't been trained to deal with are the losses that aren't bearable. As much as I tried to support her, to act, there was nothing for me to do but watch her recede into the darkest corners of herself. When she did emerge, it was only to push us all further away. So, I suppose there were two losses, the loss of Elinor and the loss of Serena. 

I'm sorry. I need a moment. I... I haven't said that out loud before.

It bothers me to know that she's still alive, but gone. Bothers, god... there are better words. I just... Even at home, there were moments that she was as out of reach to me as if she had been the one on the ventilator.

Elinor was not our daughter. Our grief wasn't shared. I wasn't even aware that I was grieving until now. AAU allowed me to deny my loss. In the days following the funeral, returning to AAU existed as a reasonable goal outlined by bereavement policies. It's clear now how absurd it was to expect her to return to ground zero daily. We all believed that there would be comfort in the routine. Even after she left on sabbatical, there were traces of her everywhere. Remembering her order in line for coffee. Finding an earring beside the trauma bay scrub station, where whispered plans for dinner replay every time I scrub out. I would spend hours on the roof in those first weeks, silently encouraging the pigeons to take flight. Somehow, I believed that if I put my head down, worked long hours, and kept the faith that she would return, and things would be put right. 

That's the thing, though, about relationships. About anything, really. As cliched as it sounds, 'the only constant is change'. There is the illusion that the person you met is the person you know now. However, the person you fell in love with yesterday is not the person you will wake up to next week. Every moment is a process of death and rebirth for the living. The undisturbed ritual of the day-to-day is almost more dangerous than the long absence. At least with distance, there's a clear awareness that time has passed, that the person you loved has changed. There's expectation to understand the change. Of course, you yourself have changed. Time and space provide perspective, though they warp the experience in their own way. What I'm trying to say is that I would have always lost the Serena I fell in love with, just as I am no longer the person in that exit hallway when she first told me she was falling in love.

After all, didn't she reconsider the hurt I had caused with Kiev based on the proclamation that I'd changed? My willingness to commit hinged on the very acknowledgement that I was different and still wanted her. Commitment can be the daily decision to discover what has changed and what has stayed the same. We honor love by recognizing the opportunities that change brings, savoring what remains, and letting go of what gets left behind. From that perspective, a partner becomes a daily gift for those who are aware: someone the odds favor you to fall in love with that day if you are willing to embrace the present moment. It means that expertise in grief is really zen mastery. Each day is a microcosm of exploration and loss. We can use these windows of time to learn as much about ourselves and the people we love before the hard reset of a crisis. 

So I have a decision to make now. Do I hold on to the past, or do I explore today? There is a current incarnation of a woman who calls late at night in sultry tones to tell me about her journey. Lately, she's let me know that she's ready when I am. I have known her as a colleague, best friend, lover, and partner. What we call ourselves in the future is for us to decide. She sent me this train ticket and a set of coordinates in the Rhone Valley. I haven't looked up the address, but I'm counting on it to be surrounded by fields of Shiraz. After all, some things never change. 

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright Disclaimer: The characters and events contained within are products of Holby City that I have simply borrowed for 1400 words or so for the purposes of my own meager expression.


End file.
